


Keep Calm and Carry On

by LillieGrey



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 12:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19356739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LillieGrey/pseuds/LillieGrey
Summary: In the days and weeks after The Valkyrie goes down Peggy carries on.





	Keep Calm and Carry On

The horrifying haze of  _ after _ is spent in a fog of stimulants and depressants. 

 

Some mornings she wakes with the taste of ashes coating her tongue, the chest clenching fire of too many cigarettes the night before stretching below her skin with every inhalation. A bone aching exhaustion despite hours of empty, dreamless sleep that can only be banished by the synthetic energy of cups of coffee and yet another cigarette. 

 

She pauses, wondering how she spiraled this far, how her life became so obscenely not her own. 

 

Then she lights another, licking the bitterness of nicotine and last night's lipstick from her lips, expelling her tissue paper expectations in a cloud of milky grey disappointment.

 

Her evenings are dulled by bourbon, slugged back from the lip of a dented tin cup. Enough to dull the edges of the day, to calm the tingling anxiety of caffeine and adrenaline. Enough to banish the memory of earnest blue eyes and a smile saved just for her. Enough to force her into sleep that's really a thinly veiled blackout, but it usually keeps her from dreaming of a hurried kiss and the echoing goodbye of radio static. 

 

They let her crumble and carry on, performing a stiff upper lip farce of efficiency until she becomes just shy of what might be reckless. She stops managing their ops from the tactical tent, waiting to intercept and decode messages and she starts joining them in the field. They allow it, wanting her close, selfishly, hoping that by having her nearby they can avoid losing someone else they love--what they don't know is they lost a part of her the day they lost Steve. 

 

It's Dugan, sweet, Dum Dum Dugan who finally calls it. Tackling her into cover when she breaks rank, standing in the open, firing with deadly accuracy to provide cover, careless of her own vulnerability. 

 

She claws at him, hissing and scrambling out from the solid safety of his girth, a broken plea of, "Just let me go," freezing him more than the Belarus winter. 

 

"No, Peg. I won't lose you too." 

 

And she splinters, racked with sobs as bullets rain around them, and he tucks her back into his side while the grief washes through her, until the fog lifts and her amber eyes turn to fire and Agent Carter, _Peggy_ , breaks back through the surface of loss. 


End file.
